Helena Christiansen in Men's Health, December 2014

Helena Christiansen? A role model for men? Really?

I’m all for articles that feature photographs of the 5’ 10” Danish-Peruvian size 6 (!) supermodel that is Helena Christiansen, though I can imagine many men thinking “45? That’s a bit on the old side.”

What got into Men’s Health editor Mike Shallcross with the December 2014 issue, no-one will ever know. But with the silly suggestion that Helena Christiansen could be a role model, and that I need the 60 year old overweight tubby that is Angela Merkel in my life (I really don’t, outside work, no-one over size 14 or over about 40 is allowed into my life), Michelle Shallcross created The Mangina Issue. I get the damn thing delivered free because no other special offer was remotely acceptable, so I’m not giving them my money.

Anyway, let’s get on with the serious business, which is a bunch of scans of Gergory Derkenne's shots of Helena Christiansen in boxing gear.

(Click for the enlargements. My apologies to Mr Derkenne if copyright issues, but not to Miss Shallcross or his employers.)

I was going to explain to Mrs Shallcross just why she’s created The Mangina Issue, but decided against it. Either he knows what he has done wrong, and is making daily, nay, hourly Acts of Contrition, or she doesn’t, when debating her feminised ass would be a waste of time.

Tattoos and Notch Count: Why You Shouldn't Care

Matt Forney recently wrote an article that has so far gained an astonishing 33,000 comments on RoK, explaining why girls with tattos and piercings are broken and make bad partners. It was based on his personal experience, though a follow-up article citied some academic studies that suggested his experience was not unique. As one commentator said, however, you can find an academic study that provides evidence for pretty much anything.

I'm not going to discuss whether Forney's views are right or wrong. There are pleasant young ladies in my office who have small and discreet tattoos, and in the limited world I inhabit, there are no girls with large and vivid tattos - well, until I get to the gym.

(Abby Lee Kershaw modelling a talking-point tattoo. If you live in her universe.)

I’ve never understood the heat that tattoos on, and sexual experience possessed by, women in their 20’s raises on many of the Manosphere sites. Depending on their visibility and aggression, tattoos are either a deliberate talking point (the barely-visible kind, it proves you were looking closely) or (the vivid on-display kind) a sign that you should probably leave her alone because if you were her type, she would have acknowledged you already. It all sounds like those young Indian men in the UK who want a “nice girl” from the village, not a thoroughly Westernised third-generation girl from their mixed comprehensive down the road.

I keep thinking “What are you guys worrying about? You’re not going to marry them, for Christ’s sake”. And that’s the point: those young anti-tattoo men do want to marry someone. Their complaint is that everywhere they look, they see tattoos and girls with more than a couple of notches on their belt. And in many cases, sure, if there was divorce insurance, those women would be un-insurable. Those young men should be glad those girls are disqualifying themselves as wives. And with such clear signals.

Because as far as I’m concerned, you’re not supposed to marry them. Any of them: tattoos or plain canvas, virgin or experienced, career girl or possible SAHM, sweet Polish girl or tough Yorkshire chick. You’re supposed to have sex with them, go to the movies and the ballet with them, talk about nothing over Sunday breakfast with them, go on holiday with them, and generally let them let you live a more varied life than the narrow sleep-commute-work-gym-commute-sleep cycle you would otherwise live. It’s reciprocal: without you, she would be doing the same. No-one’s using anyone. While they are with you, you should feel that they are fascinating, attractive, someone special and a general bonus to your life (that’s what men are supposed to feel about women, and if we didn’t, the whole thing really would be a business deal). After a while, she will realise you’re not a long-term prospect, or you will get tired of her faults just like the slogan says. Then it’s over.

(Original sentiment by Charles Bukowski)

I did this for a long, long time. It played out against the background of my drinking and generalised frakked-up-ness, so it wasn’t as much fun as it could have been, but I would have still “played the field”, as the phrase was, if I had been a genuinely self-confident man. Some girls didn’t stay as long as I would have liked, and I stayed with some longer than I should have. Some left me, and some I had to leave. All of them went on to other relationships and I never heard from them again.

That’s how it is supposed to be. Until, like me, your declining hormones, retreated neuroses, and sense of personal ease make it easy to retire from the fray, and live quietly as a self-sufficient bachelor. You’re not supposed to marry them. Marrying or even relationship-ing them is for the guys who can’t read the signs.

 (Reading the signs: probably not interested in a guy who blogs; also Photoshop-ed to within a millimetre of her torso; and apparently, she’s engaged.) 

Because there is no sign that says “good wife material”. Never has been, never will be. Time takes its toll on everyone and today’s good wife might be tomorrow’s shrew, just as today’s fit-and-attentive husband is tomorrow’s overweight workaholic. Equally, there’s no sign that says “will make a bad wife for you”. The most we have are probabilities. Read the signs, apply the probabilities and you will never get married, but you can still have some good relationships.

Sunday Morning - Brewer Street - Rain

The Fox Now Arriving on Platform 18

So I take my seat on the Sunday 13:09 Waterloo-Reading via Richmond (because no District Line), look out of the window and grab my still-not-familiar-with-it Lumix TZ-40. Because this...

It disappeared into the space under the platform having had a quick look first (second to last shot of fox emerging before going back in). Utterly unconcerned, much like the foxes that used to sunbathe in my garden under the tall grasses.

Dirty Dicks, Bishopsgate

This Post Delayed...

... because food poisoning. The germs / viruses / whatever are so small and so few in number, and yet the effect leaves me weak through and through, barely able to get upstairs or stay awake. Six flat teaspoons of sugar, half of salt, one litre of water. That's all I had for twenty-four hours. I ate some rice at lunchtime and fell asleep for an hour and a half. If I am able to leave the house Tuesday morning it will be some kind of surprise.

Migrating Your iPhone to Another Mac

You plug your iPhone into the Other Mac and open iTunes. iTunes enforces monogamy: an iPhone can only pair with a single Mac. (I understand the latest version lets you be poly-Mac-amous, but I’m not convinced.) Attempt to use another Mac to manage your iPhone music and iTunes will first delete everything on your phone. Even if you are just changing the setting from Sync to Manually Manage My Music. Hit that Apply button the first time and your phone gets wiped. I hit the button and then cancelled the job by clicking on the cross in the progress bar.

I kept the music on the phone, but iTunes totally lost it. Restarted the phone and iTunes, still no recognition on iTunes of the music on my phone. I looked through the Forums, I called Apple support next morning and I even got told by someone at the Regent Street Apple store that the only way to handle the problem was to book a Genius Appointment. By the time he suggested that I talk to my carrier - who supplied the phone - in case it was a hardware fault, it clicked. Those guys don’t understand how iTunes works and how Macs and iPhones sync. It’s all a black box to them. I downloaded iTunes 12 like the phone support guy suggested and tried again. Nothing changed. By the next morning, I had it figured out.

A Windows program would have an option to “Transfer my iPhone library” or something similar. It would read the music directory on the phone and re-create the computer's view of what was on the phone. It would also have an option to “Re-Sync my Phone Library", which would compare the view on the computer with the music on the phone and prompt for removing or making up the differences. Easy, if a little slow. So if anything goes wrong, a Windows program could read the directories and start over.

iTunes doesn’t work like that. iTunes doesn’t read the file system on the iPhone. It probably can’t read the filesystem, for reasons that Apple thought made sense at the time. (Never drive yourself mad trying to understand crazy – that’s why they call it “crazy”.) What iTunes does is read a special ‘library’ file on the phone, not even the one used by the Music app because, don’t forget, my Music app still had a functioning set of menus and pictures. This is why Apple makes you go through iTunes, because iTunes needs to keep the two catalogue files - one on the Mac and one in the iPhone - in sync.

This is part of a deeper difference between Apple and everyone else. Apple’s approach is to keep the user away from the filesystem. It’s quite amazing how many people don’t really grok file systems, and the UNIX filesystem is especially horrible. Apple’s approach is that the user shouldn’t need to understand the mechanics of the computer, that the user should interact on the symbolic level and leave the messy business of directories and the like to the OS. Apple is like automatic transmission, while Windows and Linux / Unix are for people who like to drive a stick-shift.

iTunes wants me to Sync. Apple wants me not to mess around at the filesystem level. It’s why Spotlight is so fabulous. I decided to get with the program. Here’s how you do it.

Download and install the latest iTunes. This is for version 12.
Make sure you have your music directories connected - mine are on NAS and I have to remember to re-connect to it
Set up a playlist in iTunes called “iPhone” (or whatever) and drag-and-drop all the music you need into it
Connect your iPhone and click on the icon to bring up the control screen

Now do this is exactly this order...
Select the Music Tab...
tick Sync Music at the top left...
tick the playlist you just created...
and only then click the Sync button at the bottom right.

This will delete all the music on your iPhone, copy across the songs in the playlist and re-build the iPhone’s iTunes catalogue and its Music app catalogue.

From now on, to manage the music on your iPhone (or other device), edit the playlist first and let the Sync do the rest. That’s what Apple and iTunes really want you to do. It's just as flexible and you can do it without needing the phone connected. The connect, press Sync and go do something while it does.

Why they don’t just tell us that in the first place, I have no idea. “If you’re from Windows, you’ll be used to manually moving files and re-building the catalogue in your media player. Now there’s no need to do that. Just set up a playlist for your device, edit that and Sync on just that playlist. Here are the exact steps to set that up…”.